alking with children
and teenagers about
important topics can
seem daunting, especially when it’s a new
school year and your kids come
home exhausted. Sometimes
even having a “productive” discussion about things that aren’t
that important like “How was
your day?” can feel uncomfortable and challenging.
When important topics need
to be discussed, parents often fear
they may say the wrong thing. In
reality, there is rarely a “right” or
“wrong” thing to say.The actual
process of having the conversation is most important. Instead of
skipping it, putting it off until later
or pretending it doesn’t need to
be discussed, your willingness to
engage in the process of listening
and responding is what matters.
The goal is to simply allow your
14

Athens-Oconee Parent

child to feel heard and understood (or to know you are trying
to understand).
Below are some tips that
can help create a more inviting
and less confrontational discussion when talking with your
child or teenager.

Understand the Brain
The pre-frontal cortex is important to understand when
explaining the thoughts or
behaviors of children and
teenagers.This part of the brain
is responsible for planning, decision making, interacting with
others, and inhibiting behavior
that is inappropriate.These are
often areas of concern in parenting. Parents get frustrated when
their child doesn’t plan study
time appropriately for an
upcoming test, or says or does
something inappropriate. It is

important to remember that
during childhood and the teen
years, the pre-frontal cortex is
still developing.While planning
to work on a project for days in
advance may seem obvious to
the parent who has a fully developed pre-frontal cortex, the
same is not true for a teen.The
goal for parents is to train their
child in these areas so that as
the brain develops and grows, it
becomes more and more efficient at planning, making decisions and interacting with others, and not participating in
behavior that is inappropriate or
unacceptable. Providing discipline
through choices and consequences helps the brain grow
and mature in these areas.
Understanding your teen’s brain
development enables you to
empathize with your child’s perspective of the world and have

meaningful conversations.This
also helps explain why reasoning
and offering logical arguments
and lectures can be dead ends in
communication with children
and teenagers.

Don’t Talk
Ok, maybe you can talk a little, but
keep in mind that the more you
talk the less they listen. And the
more you are talking, the less
space you are giving your child to
talk. Most importantly, avoid lecturing or jumping into “fix it” mode.

Use Empathy
Think about how the situation
your child is discussing with you
would make you feel and then
explore if that is similar to how
your child feels. For example, an
empathetic parent may say, “That
must have really made you feel
_______ [insert feeling word].”